Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Hitchhiker's Guide to OFBiz
How we found OFBiz and joined the community
Si Chen
Open Source Strategies, Inc.
How We Got Here
About
Online retailer of luxury linens and home décor
Serves interior designers, architects, direct consumers
Sources from vendors in US, Europe, Asia
Custom makes items for clients
Growth in new products and market segments
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
Before OFBiz...
Multiple point applications with limited connectivity
Web Site and
Shipping Order Entry Catalog Manager
Shopping Cart
Inventory
Accounting
Customer Lists
Order Management
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
A Growing Company Needs...
Low Cost of Ownership
Integrated solution for efficiency
Adaptable to niche product
Flexible as business changes
Scalable, in functions and in volume
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
Why We Chose OFBiz
Strong Feature Set
Robust Data Model
Architecture for Growth
Powerful Development Framework
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
Deploying OFBiz
Production Server
Linux
DNS
Failover
Backup Server
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
What We've Learned
Rapid Development with OFBiz
Fast design to code process
Study the data model
Prototype with beanshell
Services and secas make code highly reuseable
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
Learn OFBiz by Joining It
Read the tutorials:
http://www.opensourcestrategies.com/ofbiz
Identify area of interest
Find tasks on JIRA or dev list
Invest 4 hours/week x 13 weeks (3 months) = 52 hours
Submit your work for review
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
Making OFBiz Work
Collaboration Improvements
Contributions Continuing
Innovation
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
Community without Contributions
Maint Extend
Doc
Extend
Doc
Each organization invests in maintenance,
documenation, and extensions in isolation
Highly inefficient duplication of efforts
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
Community with Contributions
Maint Extend
Doc
Doc
Pool of collective resources
Lowers each organization's costs
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
The Virtuous Cycle
Make a Contribution
More Features More Users
More Developers
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
Benefits of Open Source Collaboration
Better Requirements
Peer Review Lower Cost
Testing Better Software
Maintenance
Generating code is only small part of creating software
Unless all experts are in house, collaboration is good
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
And Most Importantly...
Better Requirements
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
Should I Contribute to Open Source?
If I Contribute... If I Don't Contribute...
Collaborate with other developers Keep unique offering
Feedback, maintenance, Maintain and improve it yourself
improvements from community
Gulf with open source code base
Easier to upgrade
What if open source catches up?
Encourage more contributions
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
What Should I Contribute?
You should contribute UNLESS:
It forms your unique competitive advantage
AND
You will invest to maintain that advantage
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
What Can I Do?
Give feedback on designs
Try new features and vote on them
Bug reports are good
Patches are better
Help with documentation
Tell others about OFBiz
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
Remember...
Open source doesn't succeed
because of charity.
Open source succeeds because we
work together.
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
The Road Ahead
Next Step with OFBiz
Bring together business processes with OFBizbased
ERP solution
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
Bringing Open Source to the Enterprise
Logos properties of their respective owners
freeimages.co.uk
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.
About
Bridge gap between open source and commercial
enterprise software
Create key support and marketing networks
Promote open source software development
© 2005 Open Source Strategies, Inc.